One dilemma facing a potter is the infinite choice of how to finish a pot. Matt or glossy? Which color(s)? Decorated with marks (painting), with overlapping glazes, resist, or even glazed not at all. Do you make one offs, or sets? This is my glaze room. Each bucket has a different glaze. You never know what alchemy is going to drive the mixture of two...

At the end of the year, after the dust from the shows and the holidays settled, I decided it was time to bring a new clay into the studio – something that was brighter, cheerier, smoother, whiter than my old clay. The problem I wanted to solve is that my regular clay contains a fair amount of iron, which, when heavily reduced in the glaze firing not only...

My friend, Eric Zeig, blacksmith at Mount Vernon and also in Strasburg, Va. has made a fireback for the large fireplace in my studio. Its purpose is partly that it is so wonderful to look at, and also, it throws the heat from the fire out into the pottery. It will probably be May before we stop needing a fire!

This is Eggs-on-Mobile before the coat of barn red paint. It sports a solar panel, water catchment system, easy access egg boxes and predator proof throughout. I can keep about 80 hens and a few roosters from March to October, Thereafter, they go into the barn. There is a solar powered fence which keeps the nosy ones out!

Throwing right next to the fire has great advantages. Heat for one. Any dust that I kick up gets drawn up the chimney with the smoke, and when I finally can not stand to use an old sponge any more, I pop it into the fire! Image by...